Performing professor Tish Oney gave up medicine for a musical career

To understand how important music is for Tish Oney, one needs only to consider her routine as an undergraduate pre-med student at Cornell University.

By DAN ARMONAITISdan.armonaitis@shj.com

To understand how important music is for Tish Oney, one needs only to consider her routine as an undergraduate pre-med student at Cornell University.By day, she would take her regular classes; in the evening, she'd travel by bus to nearby Ithaca College to participate in its vocal jazz ensemble.And if that weren't enough, she'd return to her native Syracuse, N.Y., on weekends to perform with a jazz band that played 85 professional gigs a year.As exhausting as all of that sounds, Oney wouldn't have had it any other way.“I just enjoyed (music) too much to give it up,” said Oney, who grew up in a music-loving family that sang recreationally.Then, in the summer before her senior year, Oney had the opportunity to sing a lead role in a Mozart comic opera in Rome.“I had never studied Italian or taken Italian diction, but I just memorized the whole score and did two performances in front of an Italian audience,” Oney said. “And that was the moment when I decided, ‘If I can do this, then music must be my calling.'“I just had the time of my life. Music just bit me so hard at that point that I couldn't go back.”Oney has made the most of her decision to pursue music as a career. She went on to earn a master's degree in voice performance from Ithaca and a doctorate in jazz studies from the University of Southern California. She lives in Greenville and teaches at the University of South Carolina Upstate.

Most notably, however, Oney has spent the past decade as an internationally acclaimed jazz vocalist and composer with an impressive touring and recording resume.Oney has released multiple albums, including her latest effort, “Sweet Youth,” and has worked extensively with acclaimed guitarist John Chiodini, whose credits include everyone from Natalie Cole and Michael Feinstein to Barbra Streisand and Paul McCartney.Chiodini served as music director for Peggy Lee in the 1980s, which is noteworthy considering Oney does a tribute show called “The Peggy Lee Project.”When Oney performs Friday in the David W. Reid Theater at the Chapman Cultural Center, the musical selections will include songs written by Lee, various jazz standards and several original Oney compositions.Billed as “An Evening with Tish Oney,” the concert will feature musical accompaniment from the USC Upstate Jazz All-Stars, which is composed of Oney's faculty colleagues Gregg Akkerman on piano, Adam Knight on guitar, Shannon Hoover on bass and Tony Christopher on drums.“It's going to be a wonderful opportunity for us to get together and play some great music,” Oney said.“We're all looking forward to it. They're excellent players, and it's nice for us to have the chance to bond professionally in a public performance.”Oney will also perform “The Peggy Lee Project” at the Chapman Cultural Center on April 25 in a concert that she said will include a guest appearance by Chiodini.Oney wrote her doctoral dissertation on “the lyrical genius of Peggy Lee,” which led to the creation of the show and her longstanding friendship and professional partnership with Chiodini.“John and I made (‘The Peggy Lee Project') into a marketable nationally touring show that highlights Peggy Lee as a songwriter, not so much emphasizing her famous hit songs that were not written by her but focusing on her creative aspect that had been ignored all those years,” Oney said.

Although Oney cites Ella Fitzgerald as her first major vocal influence, Lee eventually became her all-time favorite.“Peggy Lee was a ‘cool' singer, in that she mastered understatement and soft dynamics and pauses and silence and allure,” Oney said.Because of her interest in a style of music that experienced its greatest popularity in the first half of the 20th century, Oney admits to sometimes feeling like an “old soul.”“There were many times when I felt like I was born too late, but then again, I feel lucky because there aren't all that many of us who are successful doing this kind of music now,” Oney said. “I love this music, and I've been told that I have a gift for it.“It really is my pleasure to contribute something that (will appeal) not only to people who remember the music from decades ago but also to people who are young now and really appreciate those voices and the whole genre of the American songbook.”

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